The present invention relates generally to designing electronic circuits such as integrated circuits, and more particularly to placement of electronic circuits.
Electro-migration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a conductor. Electro-migration can result in wires being severed or shorted and is particularly problematic at the I/O interfaces of an integrated circuit due to their high drive currents. The probability of an electro-migration induced failure is dependent on (increases from) a variety of factors including reduced wire width, higher temperature, higher current density, and higher operating frequency. As transistor, circuit, and wire dimensions exponentially decrease due to Moore's law and operating frequencies increase, electro-migration is becoming increasingly problematic—particularly since currents are not scaling proportionally to shrinking wire widths which results in exponentially higher current densities.